Abandon hope all ye who enter here

Posted by on 18/01/2010 1 comment

First proper Sunday ride since Xmas so I thought I’d make it a good one, headed out of town and across to Geddington to ride Clay Dick, then over to Fermyn Woods, then Aldwincle, Lyveden Way, Bear Gate Track and home.
Clay Dick is an old Byway that links Geddington to Brigstock and possibly the site of a Victorian Brickworks (hence the clay reference…). Anyway usually the top end is virtually unpassable, with the trees hanging so low over the trail that in some places you cannot even push a bike through……except this time the Byway had been ‘repaired’.

By ‘repair’ I mean they have bulldozed the whole thing flat, about 40 feet wide, ripping out all the trees, bushes, rabbit and foxholes and turning it into a mile of sticky wet clay that will take months to settle .
So I rode as much as I could until my EWR stopped working and my feet started to look like Swamp Thing and then I carried my bike for 3/4 a mile .

I fought my way to Brigstock and crossed thru Fermyn Woods which was another, barely rideable shitfest before aborting the ride near Sudborough

Wildlife count for the ride was still good, four or five Red Kites (all eluded my camera sadly), 5 fairly big deer in Fermyn Woods and six Llama’s…..yeah It’s true, although they could have been Alpaca, Clovius Hoofus isn’t my area of expertise

Nice beginnings


Mud stops Play…

Magura ‘Mud Magnets’…wheel locked

‘Repaired’ trail – The Long Walk

Mud Magnets Part 2

FUBAR EWR

 

Being upfront pays off…

Posted by on 07/01/2010 No comments

So you guys and girls all know the score….Xmas/Thanksgiving comes along, family and friends all do that “Hey, what do you want for a present?” thing, you Ummm and ahhh, suck air through your teeth…say “Hmmmm, I dunno” and weeks later unwrap something mundane like aftershave, nasty socks, wine you wouldn't pour on a skunk, a hideous sweatshirt….you get the idea

So this year I decided to be more assertive, I needed a bunch more bike and DIY tools so I assembled a wishlist of tools, added the exact Part Numbers, prices and web site addresses and stepped away, telling people to “Please be precise, or fallback on the skunk wine/socks route…”

Et Voila….it worked

Santa Claus brought me:






I'm one happy goat….everybody wins

World SPD Stamping Championships 2010

Posted by on 04/01/2010 No comments

For a year or so now my riding buddies have been extolling the virtues of SPD’s and trying to sell the idea to me, you see, I still live in the world of the Toeclip so I can’t see the sense. I never fall off my bike, never have much trouble ‘getting in’ to my toeclips and to be honest, in recent months I’ve gone back to flat pedals with no clips at all.

Yesterday was what turned out to be a large RetroBike meet at Thetford Forest, the largest lowland Pine Forest in Great Britain, down in deepest Suffolk with 22 riders attending. Also present in large quantities was snow and ice…..LOTS of it, which, much to my amusement, seems to be THE Achilles Heel of SPD pedals

The tranquil, picture postcard ‘snowscape’ scenery was shattered by the sound of dozens of MTB riders furiously stamping on their frozen/useless SPD’s, wobbling and dabbing the ground…hence the title of this blog post

Joking aside a great day was had by all during the two sub-zero rides we did yesterday……some pictures:

Chin Wag

Art Haus

Wobble Fun

Watching the ‘Bomber Kidz’

Snow Road

All Along The Watchtower

Iced Mech

Xntrick Machinery

Alien Sunset

More pictures and words can be found HERE

This is for when the Föhn Wind rattles the telegraph wires like a handful of bones…

Posted by on 18/12/2009 1 comment

Apologies for ‘Going Dark’ for the last few weeks…..it has been a tiring and stressful time full of Terminal Illness, Hospices, Hospitals, thousands of miles driving and sadly a family funeral, I haven’t seen or touched a bike since the Thetford Forest Ride

Lots of other ‘hard stuff’ is also seeming to be rearing its head too so its been all energy focussed on these things recently and it really doesn’t feel like time to celebrate Xmas . Anyway, enough depressing bullshit, hopefully I might get out on the EWR next week (it’s my Birthday on Monday…Yaaaaay )

I’m negotiating on a set of Accu Trax forks in the correct size for the EWR so I can finally ditch the King Devolution Headset and nail the bar/stem height demon forever, I also now have some NOS Campagnolo Mirox to get laced to some NOS Shimano DX hubs so this bike is getting quite close to completion

Thetford Forest Ride – Primordial Shitfest

Posted by on 04/12/2009 No comments

Main Entry: penis en·vy
Pronunciation: -“en-vE
Function: noun
: the supposed coveting of the penis by a young human female which is held inpsychoanalytic theory to lead to feelings of inferiority and defensive or compensatory behavior.

Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

…a little twist on this:

Main Entry: 29er en·vy
Pronunciation: -“en-vE
Function: noun
: the supposed coveting of a 29″ bicycle by a man which leads to feelings of inferiority and defensive or compensatory behavior by owning a 26″ bicycle when the fact dawns on him he has just been ‘outgunned’ by superior technology…..so, NEVER try and keep up with someone on a 29er, especially when you are on an early 90’s fully rigid 26″ MTB

It was like a Roadrunner cartoon….Jango was off into the distance, casually pedalling while still seated, as if he was on a genteel Sunday amble. I was Wile.E. Coyote (Pure Genius) pedalling crazily like a schoolkid on a BMX, bouncing off tree roots, slipping all over the trail, vibrations from the trail jarring my body, repeatedly looking down at my gears as if there was something wrong or about to fall off…..there wasn’t, I was just riding ‘Old Tech’ and the 29er, as horribly modern and soul-less as it is, this was was the superior machine on the day…..it was like trying to follow a Cruise Missile in downtown Bagdad (remember the Speederbike chases in Star Wars?)

Thetford was cold and wet but the sun was out and the clouds had gone, only two of us turned out for the smallest Mini-Meet in history. Thetford Forest’s trails had turned into Primordial Ooze…..it was a Shitfest of the highest order, gloopy brackish slimey puddles, slippery trails and a cold wind but it was great riding. We did most of the Dusk Till Dawn route, plus some of the Black Route and The Beast in the morning (12 miles) then back to Brandon for Macaroni Cheese and unedible Bread Pudding before hitting the trails again after lunch, our bottom brackets feeling like someone had packed them full of sand and refitted them and our rear mechs complaining bitterly about all the gritty shit they were being force fed

The afternoon was a shorter 7 mile route on the Visitor Center side with some great flowing Singletrack.

A brilliant days riding, cold wet legs and some very dirty bikes!!

Dangerous times?…Health & Safety paranoia

Shitfest got my EWR – Part 3

Vintage Saracen Catalogue Mother Lode

Posted by on 03/12/2009 No comments

On Monday I spent the day at Saracen HQ as a guest of Simon Wild, the designer of the relaunched Saracen bike range. Saracen has been brought back from the dead by Madison Cycles and they have launched an entire range of bikes in the last two months.

Of interest to any Retro MTB fans might well be the 2010 Kili Flyer that I reported on a while back on this blog . This bike is going to be fillet brazed in the UK and available in small numbers next year.

The purpose of my visit to Saracen was to scan in all of their catalogue archives from the original Saracen company, these will prove to be valuable documents to anyone with an interest in this iconic British MTB company, or anyone restoring an old Saracen MTB.
I was given an office for the day and took in my own equipment but despite scanning non-stop from 9:30am until late in the afternoon I only managed to get from 1987 to 1998 (somewhere in the region of 350 Hi-Res scans ).

Simon was kind enough to let me take the archives home with me so I can complete this mammoth task over the Christmas break. The intention is to tidy up and crop all of the scans and create a high quality PDF for each year. Once this is done they will be hosted on both my site, Saracen.co.uk and also in the RetroBike Archive

Some teasers


1 x 7 Beater Project – Pt 4

Posted by on 02/12/2009 No comments

Some minor updates on the Beater Project…..got most of the parts now for the brakes, had to go buy some items as I seem to have given away too many Magura parts recently and left myself short . Gear cable outers have now been cut to size and fitted in the cable stops and I’ve found a rough-ish Mavic 231CD/Shimano DX wheelset laying around that will do just fine for this build.
I’m still searching for the crown bolts I put in a ‘safe place’ when I traded some Pace crowns earlier in the year….if the damn things don’t show up I’ll have to source some replacements from someplace. A friend of mine has some tatty old bars that sound just right for this bike, hopefully I’ll get my hands on those soon then I can cable up the one Thumbie, fix up the Magura’s and get them bled. I’m kinda concerned about them stem as it does look to short but we’ll have to see how it rides…

Bike shaped at last

Wot no crown bolts…..


Mavic 231CD’s….Mmmmmmm

No Sleep Til Hammersmith…..or Leicester even….

Posted by on 01/12/2009 No comments

Non bike related blog post here…..me and Mrs Billy Goat had a Rock ‘n’ Roll Road Trip at the weekend and guess what?  We ain’t as young as we used to be and now we’re both tired

Drove down to London and parked up in Park Lane, took Mrs Billy Goat round Covent Garden and bought some of her Xmas presents (warning….don’t go in the UGG shop ), we then went round Seven Dials in Holborn (great shopping area!!) before heading back to our hotel room in the Barbican. That night we went across town to the Hammersmith Apollo to see Girlschool, The Damned and Motörhead. Girlschool were pretty lame but they did do Please Don’t Touch and Lemmy came on for this…
The Damned played a ‘greatest hits’ type set, opening with New Rose and ending with Smash It Up, an unexpected nicety along the way being a cover of the MC5’s Looking At You. I’m not a massive Damned fan but they can still ‘do the business’ as they say.

Motörhead were not the best I’ve ever seen them and the sound at Hammersmith was pretty lame for some reason but they did a fairly good set (apart from the guitar and drum solo’s…)

Set List:
Iron Fist
Stay Clean
Be My Baby
Metropolis
Over The Top
One Night Stand
I Got Mine
Guitar Solo
The Thousand Names of God
Cradle to the Grave
In The Name Of Tragedy (Drum Solo…)
Just ‘Cos You Got The Power
Shoot ’em Down (Twisted Sister cover)
Orgasmatron
Going To Brazil
Killed By Death
Bomber

Encore:
Whorehouse Blues
Ace Of Spades
Overkill


Photograph: © Clemens Bilan/AFP/Getty Images

Some cellphone YouTube footage of Ace Of Spades (not mine btw)

We stayed down in the Barbican overnight and called in to visit relatives in Hackney the next morning, before driving up to Leicester (Du Montfort Hall) to see Ian Brown on Sunday.
Brown was his usual arrogant/brilliant self and despite the fact that he cannot sing very well, soon had the virtual capacity crowd eating out of his hand as he delivered a great set taking in material from most of the old albums and encoring with The Stone Roses Fools Gold.

The crowd went wild and got so drunk so fast the security staff closed the bar by 10pm

‘King Monkey’

250 miles, lots of cash, hotel rooms and five bands later we are VERY tired

Laugh? I nearly fell off my chair….

Posted by on 23/11/2009 No comments

No intro needed….regardless of where your allegiances lay…this IS funny

Help From The VRC

(sound required…..)

1 x 7 Beater Project – Pt 3

Posted by on 16/11/2009 2 comments

Not any riding currently going on at GoatSurfer Central, still suffering from dental trauma (with more on the way this coming week )

Some minor updates on my ‘not to be taken too seriously’ Beater project.

The trashed Kona Racelight saddle has been ‘sympathetically’ repaired and I’ve found a stem in the parts bin that will do for now. I reckon I have some old Mavic 231 CD’s that will do for wheels and I’m sifting round for some suitable bars.

DUCT tape repair one…

DUCT rape repair two…

Et Voila

Old Spesh stem